As I sat on the wooden deck, and the juice of the apple taken from the tree in view dripped in between my ring finger and pinky, I reflected on what a beautiful experience the two weeks at Ekbacka Gård had been. A course that started – literally – with a double rainbow after light rain, and ended with a marriage proposal at midnight on the final evening.

A magical two weeks of sharing, learning, laughing, and permaculturing! Engaging classes melted into fun practicals under the Swedish summer sun - we fermented cabbage, felted and made balms, hot composted (using roadkill (badger) to 'trigger' the process), built cold frames, and of course, continuously obtained a yield as the 29 varieties of tomotoes on site ripened in the poly tunnel.

Oh the food!! It was just so good. Fresh farm salads every lunch, wonderful diversity, fabulous dips, smoothies, cakes, treats... The quality was incredible. There's really not much point in writing more - the pictures speak volumes. The list of greens in the salads was seemingly endless.

Midway through the course, on the evening of the day off, our dear hosts Katrin and Bo treated us to a sweat lodge, and held it to it's traditional authenticity as closely as possible - another excellent experience.

We also had a few wonderful classes from guest speakers on food forestry (there is a newly implemented forest garden just a short walk away from the site) and inclusiveness in permaculture.

Many mornings people were up early practicing yoga or wandering the grounds. Evenings provided time to catch up on some classic permaculture Ted Talks and videos and one or two meditation sessions and of course frequent jams.

The small group formed strong bonds and worked hard to complete excellent final designs. One student remarked after the course that it had been the best educational experience of their life. But this blogger is also an organiser - best read about the experience of Josie, one of the course participants, through her blog here.

Thank you to everyone who took part, for freely sharing so much and for making this a truly memorable PDC. What a fortnight! - to be repeated.